


Flesh And Blood.

by Jackmerlin



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 00:38:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10502802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackmerlin/pseuds/Jackmerlin
Summary: Run Away Home seen from the perspective of a minor character. Canon underage sex.





	

I won’t ever get to see him again now.

 

“Call me Becky,” the counsellor says. “ How are you, _Judith_?” She says my name as if she’s leaning on it, to show me she knows who I am, I suppose. She’s read all my notes.  
She looks a bit hopeless herself. She’s wearing a saggy, multi-coloured cardigan that looks like she might have knitted it herself, the sleeves fraying a bit at the ends, and a big, purple scarf that doesn’t go. Her hair is a sort of orangey colour up to a line an inch from her parting, where it turns mousey grey. She looks like someone who doesn’t have anyone to bother looking tidy for. Not that I can talk. I haven’t looked in a mirror since …. Well, days anyway.  
She doesn’t need to look smart for her patients, that’s for sure. She’s just mopping up the mess.  
“Your mum’s taking you home,” says Becky. She says it as if it’s a question. I can just see Mum waiting, hovering outside the ward, while Becky does her thing. “I’m going to give you some numbers,” she says, rummaging in her bag. Papers spill everywhere. “You can always call me if you need to talk. And there’s a leaflet with the numbers of lots of different helplines. And there’s a support group you might try.” She shoves paper at me, and waits for me to take it. I put it beside me, on the unmade hospital bed. I haven’t got anything to say. “I’ll be in touch, soon,” Becky says, rising to go. She gives me a quick, routine smile, not expecting me to smile back.  
I thought Mum would drive me to the flat, but she takes me back home instead. “You can stop here for a few days,” she says. “Till you’re back on your feet.”

 

_Mum never expected me. She and Dad were in their forties by the time I came along. They’d got used to thinking that they weren’t going to have any kids. It suited them really. I was a bit of a Judy-come-lately, Mum used to say. Her little joke._  
_It seems by the time I did come along, they’d forgotten that they’d ever wanted a baby. It was too late to start actually wanting the one they got._  
_Dad worked in an office but some days he couldn’t go to work. When he was having one of his bad days Mum sent me next door to play with Phyllis. She was two years older than me but she was nice._  
_“What’s wrong with your dad?” she asked once._  
_Her mum was getting us our dinner. She said, “He’s hurt on the inside. Where it doesn’t show.”_  
_Dad had been in the war, and got a bullet in his chest. It did show though. When we went to the beach in the summer and he took his shirt off, you could see the place where it went in - a round, pink hole where the hair didn’t grow. I don’t know if it was his chest that hurt on his bad days though. Now I think it must have been more of a darkness inside his head._  
_Phyllis had a piece of chalk once to make a hopscotch on the street, but then she found out I could draw. I drew anything she told me to. Flowers, clouds, people, anything, all over the pavement._  
_“Draw them,” she said. There were two dogs over the road, Mrs Brown’s little bitch who’d got out of her garden on heat, and the poodle from down the road who was getting at her. Mrs Brown had thrown a bucket of water over them, but it was too late. They’d got tied together the way dogs do, so I was drawing them just like that, their bums stuck together with their faces looking kind of funny and sad, when Mum came along to fetch me home. There were some kids around then, just looking, so she waited till we were in the house till she walloped me. She made me go to bed after that without any tea._

 

 A couple of days of Mum tip-toeing round me, not knowing what to say, and I want to go back to my own place.  
“You could give it up, now,” says Mum. “Have your old room back here. Be nice to have company again.”  
I say I’ll think about it. Maybe I will. It doesn’t matter now.  
There’s an envelope waiting in my mailbox, back at the flat. An air-mail one. Like I used to get, once a year, regular as clockwork. They used to come in the summer, the week of his birthday.  
“Are you going to open it then?” Mum asks.  
I don’t know. I shrug. Mum opens it anyway, and I don’t tell her not to. She reads it to herself, then puts it on the shelf by the door. “He says Edward is well and safe at home, and has gone back to school. He sends you his best wishes and hopes you are well. Nothing about how he got there.”

 

_I was scared. My waters went all over the floor in the art room. I thought I was wetting myself and I couldn’t stop it. They put me in the little room next to the Head’s office where they sent kids who were being sick. It felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside._  
_The head-master was outside the door talking to someone. I don’t think he’d ever spoken to me in all my time at school. “Sly little minx,” he was saying. “Still, she’s got what she asked for now.”_  
_How did he know that? I never asked for anything._

 

 They’re being alright at work. A few awkward looks the first day back, but then it’s been back to normal. Head down, doing my work. Not saying much. Chipping in money for cakes on Fridays, remembering who has how many sugars in their coffees. Siobhan in accounts, who left to have a baby, brings the baby in to show everyone. A girl, dressed all in pink. Everyone oohs and aahs. I’m alright. I say all the right things.

 

_When I was fourteen I started working at the big hotel. The odd night in the week and most weekends. Washing up in the kitchen in the evenings and helping with the rooms weekends. Mum said we couldn’t afford for me to be staying on at school if I didn’t help out a bit, and it meant I had a bit of money for myself too. The holiday I turned fifteen I worked full-time, when they were busy with summer visitors._  
_It was that summer he came to work in the hotel. He was a trainee manager or something, they said, but his daddy was rich and was paying for him to spend a year in England, learning his job. His English wasn’t very good then. He could say things, but very polite and old-fashioned. He didn’t understand the slang and the jokes the other girls used, and when they laughed at something he got stiff and prickly because he didn’t know what they’d been saying. He had big, round glasses and his hair used to fluff up, and when he was flustered he ended up looking like a cartoon owl. It made him look quite sweet, although I wouldn’t say that now._  
_That’s why he liked me to start with; because I never said much anyway, or made any jokes. We went for walks at first, then we started going to the pictures when we had evenings off. His English was getting better by then. I didn’t mind the pictures but he liked going back to the hotel. There were all those empty rooms._

_I suppose I wanted to know about kissing. Phyllis had loads of boys after her by then, and she was always going on about what her latest fella was like, whether he was good at kissing or not up to much._  
_I wasn’t sure what it was meant to be like. I liked that he wanted to kiss me, I suppose. I thought maybe he was one of the ones that weren’t up to much._  
_I said, “I don’t know. Not now. Not yet.”_  
_But he just said, “Don’t be silly. Come on now. Don’t be silly.”_

Call-me-Becky rings after work, checking up on me. “Have you looked at those leaflets I gave you?”  
No. I didn’t even bring them home.  
She tries again. “Is there anyone you’re talking to, Judith? You could go along to one of those drop-in groups I told you about? Or an art class? I know you were good at art.”  
How does she know that, I wonder, but it’s not that big a surprise. Everyone seems to think they know my story.

 

_“Don’t be silly.” That’s what Mum said. “How are you going to keep a baby on your own? How will you work? We can’t be minding a baby for you, not at our age. Not with your dad the way he is.”_  
_“What’s wrong with Switzerland?” Phyllis asked. “I’d go like a shot if my Alfie asked me to.” She looked at me and maybe she guessed a bit, because then she said, “Still, maybe your Felix isn’t like my Alfie.”_  
_He used to talk to Edward in French. Sometimes in German too, but mostly French. I asked what he was saying to him. Oh, he said, I’m telling him about the mountains, the hotel, his grandfather. Everything that’s waiting for him._  
_He was only eight weeks old then._

 

Saturday morning and I’m just getting ready to go to the shops when the doorbell rings. It’s Becky.  
Her hair’s all one colour today. She’s wearing another scarf, this one’s crocheted, with tiny, little mirror beads in it. She looks quite chirpy.  
“This isn’t a work call,” she says. “I have to walk past this way to my sister’s, so I thought I could drop this off.”  
I invite her in. I suppose I should put the kettle on, but she says no. “I thought it might help to write things down,” she says. “If you don’t feel like talking. Like a sort of diary. Instead of brooding on things.” She hands me a paper bag from the stationer’s. There’s a hardback notebook inside. The outside is covered with a photo of liquorice allsorts. The inside is lined. There’s a new pen in the bag as well.  
I don’t really know what to think, but she’s looking at me so hopefully that I can’t help smiling and saying thank you. It seems barmy though. No-one’s ever going to want to read it.

 

_Mum said maybe it was all for the best. I’d never really wanted him, she said._  
_But I remember when he was mine. He used to fix his big eyes on me, when I was feeding him, on my own in the night. He looked at me like I was the most amazing thing in the world, like he wanted to drink me with his eyes. All babies do that, they say. It’s to make you fall in love with them, so you don’t wander off and leave them for the wolves like the ones in the stories. So you feel like you’re tied to them and it hurts if you go too far apart._  
_It worked on me anyway. So when they said, well, you’ll have to have him adopted, it was too late. He was my baby. I could put my finger in his hand, and he wound his tiny fingers round mine and gripped tightly, just like a little monkey._

_One day he was gone. They just took him from me and it was like having my insides ripped out all over again._

It seems funny writing down things that happened to me, as if I was the main character in a story.  
It’s never been my story though. I’ve always been coming on in the background to other people’s stories. Like a walking shadow. Like I’m not really there.

 

_I don’t remember much about the time when I was ill before. It’s like a great, dark cloud blotting out more than a year of my life. When I came out of it Mum got me into a secretarial course. It was too late to think about going back to A levels, or anything like that. So I got a job and then I was just like lots of other eighteen year olds, working nine to five, a little bit of money to spend on a weekend if I wanted._  
_I saved up to see a solicitor. He didn’t think I’d have much chance of getting Edward back. Not unless I had a lot of money to spend. At least he didn’t charge me just for telling me that._  
_Mum wanted me to stay at home then, help her with Dad. But Phyllis was sharing a flat and the other girl was leaving so Phyllis asked me if I wanted the room. That was nice while it lasted._  
_Her Alfie did ask her in the end. Not to go to Switzerland, that is, but they did move to Streweminster. When she and Alfie got married, I kept the flat on by myself. It was a stretch really, on just my wages, but I didn’t spend much on anything else, and I always hoped I’d need the extra room someday, even if it wasn’t much more than a box._

 

It’s funny this writing business. I didn’t think I’d like it. But I’m filling up Becky’s notebook. It’s hard to stop once you get started.

 

_There’s always been people interfering, thinking they knew best. The school rang me at work one day and asked me to come in. Edward had run away from the school. He’d been rude to his teacher, and she’d sent him to sit outside the Head-teacher’s office. He’d seen the open door and he’d just slipped out. He got picked up by two policeman, because he’d nearly run right in front of a bus. He was in his school uniform so they knew where he’d come from and brought him back to school._  
_There was another woman in the Head’s office, along with Edward’s teacher._  
_“This is Sharon, from Family Services,” said the Head. She waffled on for a bit. I was picturing Edward under the bus. It made me want to give up, like everyone said I should._  
_“You’re not able to keep Edward safe at the moment,” the old bat said. A bit rich, because it was the school he’d run out from that time. “We have a duty of care, Judith. If Edward keeps trying to run away we have no choice but to call in Social Services. We’re going to have to recommend he’s taken into care.”_  
_I just stared at her._  
_“You’re not coping, Judith. Just while everything’s being sorted out,” she said, smiling as if she thought she was being kind. “While we find out what the situation’s going to be - in the long term.”_  
_I had to agree. It was my last chance._

 

I bought a postcard to send Edward, but for a long time I couldn’t think what to write. I end up asking Becky.  
“What would you say to him if he was here?” she asks. She’s wearing another scarf, a silk one today, because it’s quite warm out, with a pattern of cherry blossom all over it.  
I want to know if he’s happy. I want him to know that I love him. I want to say that I can see that he’s where he wants to be, and that’s ok. I want to say that I’m sorry.  
But I don’t know if I can say all that.  
“Write whatever you want,” says Becky. “You don’t have to post it yet. Or even at all.”  
That makes it easier to write. When I’ve finished I put it on the shelf by the door.  
One day I will buy the stamp and put it in the post.

 

_I remember one lovely day we had, right at the beginning. It was a proper hot July day. I’d taken my two weeks holiday for Edward’s visit. We were just getting to know each other again._  
_We went to the supermarket in the morning, so he could show me all the foods he liked. I made a picnic, and we took the train to Westbridge Halt, then we walked down to the beach from there._  
_He’d never seen the sea before and at first he just stared. He was a bit frightened of the waves, till I rolled my dress right up and paddled in, till the water was up to my thighs. Then he kicked off his shoes too, and tried it. Soon we were splashing each other and he started laughing, and we were like two kids messing around. I could have been his big sister or something._  
_Then we sat on the beach and had our picnic. An ice-cream van came down onto the sands and I bought him a Ninety-Nine. Then we sat in the sun reading his comics - I’d bought him the Beano and the Dandy. His English wasn’t bad, he could read most of it, and I helped him with the words he didn’t know._  
_We were going home, at the end of the afternoon, walking slowly along the farm track up near the big house, going the long way back to the station because it was so nice being out. I saw two horses coming towards us. People up on their horses never seem to notice people on the ground, and this boy and girl were too busy riding side-by-side and talking to each other to mind us, so we had to stay right on the edge of the path. Edward gave a tiny gasp, and he squeezed in behind me, and I thought, oh, he must be frightened of horses. But he’d done it without realising I think - hidden behind me, I mean - and it gave me a sort of glow inside. It was then that the thought came to me. I can do this. I can look after him. I can keep him safe._

_But as it turned out, I couldn’t._

 

Becky wore me down in the end. I’ve agreed to go to one of her groups.  
“It’s an art club, not a class exactly. It’s run by a lovely lady, she’s an artist herself. It’s in the church hall, so the vicar pops in to say hello if he’s not busy, but he doesn’t get _religious_ or anything.” she told me. “There’s something different for people to sketch every time, and in the summer they go out places. And there’s tea and coffee, and people can just chat if they want. It’s easier to talk if you’re doing something else at the time, I always find. You know, if you’ve got something to do with your hands.”  
She’s doing too much of a hard sell. It makes me nervous. I don’t want to talk about myself. I know what my problems are.  
“You never know,” says Becky. “Maybe you can help someone else with their problems.”  
I wouldn’t know how.  
“All you have to do is listen,” she says.  
So here I am, walking down the path beside the church. There’s a half-open door at the back, and I go in.  
There’s some tables and chairs, a trestle table with a tea-urn on it, and a few people sitting round, some at easels. There’s a couple of big vases of daffodils.  
The man behind the urn sees me and smiles. He’s wearing a dog-collar but he’s quite young for a vicar, and nice-looking with blondish hair.  
“Perfect timing,” he says. “The water’s just come to the boil. I’m Chris, by the way.”  
He holds a hand out, and I take it. “Hi,” I say. “I’m Judith.”  
“Welcome Judith,” he says. “Would you like tea or coffee?”

**Author's Note:**

> Judith, Felix and Edward are my interpretations of AF's characters. All the others are mine. I have borrowed phrases used by Rowan and Karen in RAH - one for my title and the other in the text.


End file.
